Slashdot videos: Now with more Slashdot!

View

Discuss

Share

We've improved Slashdot's video section; now you can view our video interviews, product close-ups and site visits with all the usual Slashdot options to comment, share, etc. No more walled garden! It's a work in progress -- we hope you'll check it out (Learn more about the recent updates).

What they actually did was create a NEW strain of the virus, which was physically transmissible. Before they bred this transmissible virus via ferrets, it was not easily transmitted to humans.

So what they did was actually create a superflu... one with a high mortality rate in humans and is easily transmissible. Whereas before these experiments, it already had a high mortality rate, but was not easy to transmit.

These were extrememly dangerous experiments that should never have been carried out. The labs where they did this work do make mistakes... we know because they have suffered loss of containment in the past!

there was another thread about this same subject a few weeks ago, and there was no "new strain of the virus", just a virus sharing one of the proteins that help the virii attach to cells

while we have lots of resistant bacterias living in our hospitals (and by our mean "all the hospitals in the world"), we're getting hype over this... not sure any more it's hysterics or histrionics... maybe Netherlands needs pretexts to wipe out chicken farms somewhere...

Scientists appear to be responsible for the hype surrounding this experiment. Fouchier called it ‘one of the most dangerous viruses you can make’. Paul Keim, chair of NSABB, ‘can’t think of another pathogenic organism that is as scary as this one’, and Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University says the experiment should not have been done. Martin Enserink writing in ScienceInsider says that the virus could change world history, and similar proclamations of doom can be found in the popular press.

Passage of viruses in a different host is one strategy for reducing the virulence in humans. This concept is explained in this passage from Principles of Virology:

Less virulent (attenuated) viruses can be selected by growth in cells other than those of the normal host, or by propagation at nonphysiological temperatures. Mutants able to propagate better under these selective conditions arise during viral replication. When such mutants are isolated, purified, and subsequently tested for pathogenicity in appropriate models, some may be less pathogenic than their parent.

The possibility that passage of the H5N1 virus in ferrets will attenuate its virulence in humans has been ignored.

I applaud your ability to admit to being potentially or clearly incorrect. Even if you end up being correct, I see far too many ill-informed people that are quick to take a popular view, without questioning sources AND their own judgement. I believe the deepest levels of learning come from questioning everything and evryone, especially yourself, when considering what one accepts to be fact.

From your link: "A laboratory in the Netherlands has identified a lethal influenza H5N1 virus strain that is transmitted among ferrets."

The whole argument from your link about it not being as lethal as H5N1 is pure speculation - as he admits, we don't know transmissibility of the strain in humans, because we won't do that experiment. His basic argument is the virulence of the virus in humans is reduced by having the virus be transmitted through non-human hosts. This is not necessarily true - it depends on what species the virus is moving between. If a virus makes the leap from something further from humans (eg fish) to something closer to humans (eg pigs) then it becomes more dangerous to us. His argument may be correct in the case where you have an organism adapted very well to humans and you expose it to non-human transmission selective pressures, then it will probably evolve and become less adapted to humans. But this is not always the situation.

He also says:

Nature is far better at producing viruses that can kill – to think that we can duplicate the enormous diversity and selection pressures that occur in the wild is a severe case of scientific hubris.

Maybe he is right (at the moment) about manually targetted changes - but we are only going to get better at this over time. He has also ignored the practice of laboratory evolution [google.com] (or synthetic evolution), where nature is used in the lab to evolve or enhance certain characteristics of organisms. For a far-out plan, some rogue biologists could expose humans, see which ones are infected and die first, and then infect others with flu samples taken from those bodies. After repeating for some generations, this selective pressure may well produce a highly lethal and highly transmissible variant.

The whole argument from your link about it not being as lethal as H5N1 is pure speculation - as he admits, we don't know transmissibility of the strain in humans, because we won't do that experiment.

Right. But the expectation is that the mutations the virus makes, in the process of improving their ability to infect the new non-human host, typically reduce their ability to infect humans. Not necessarily true, of course. But more likely than not.

"Right. But the expectation is that the mutations the virus makes, in the process of improving their ability to infect the new non-human host, typically reduce their ability to infect humans. Not necessarily true, of course. But more likely than not."

The reason that is irrelevant in this case, and the experiments more alarming than many people might think, is because ferret and human transimissibility (and susceptibility) are extremely similar. That is the whole reason WHY ferrets are used in influenza studies.

If it were a fish or a frog or even a dog or gorilla, it would probably be much different (I admit I don't know much about influenza in gorillas). But it wasn't any of those. It was ferrets.

To determine whether H5N1 viruses could be transmitted between humans, my team generated viruses that combined the H5 haemagglutinin (HA) gene with the remaining genes from a pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. Avian H5N1 and human pandemic 2009 viruses readily exchange genes in experimental settings, and those from a human virus may facilitate replication in mammals. Indeed, we identified a mutant H5 HA/2009 virus that spread between infected and uninfected ferrets (used as models to study the transmission of influenza in mammals) in separate cages via respiratory droplets in the air. Thus viruses possessing an H5 HA protein can transmit between mammals.

Our results also show that not all transmissible H5 HA-possessing viruses are lethal. In ferrets, our mutant H5 HA/2009 virus was no more pathogenic than the pandemic 2009 virus — it did not kill any of the infected animals. And, importantly, current vaccines and antiviral compounds are effective against it.

You just completely ignored everything I said. I am fully cognizant of the danger and folly of ignorant false alarmism. I am talking about an equally dangerous folly: false complacency.

So I will spell it out for you: your complacency is not a product of your intellect and your education. It is a product of an emotional bias just as dangerous as the false alarmism we are both aware of, but for some reason, you see only the false alarmism as the danger on this topic. Failure in cognition on your part.

GP was fully justified in calling you on your complacency. True, as it turned out, the mutant virus was not apparently particularly lethal. However, and this is the more important point: that was not known in advance; it easily could have been.

I repeat: some of these same labs have had containment breaches before. It can and does happen.

If, as you state, the research is truly needed, then better facilities should be built and better protocols for containment developed.

Further, just in case YOUR reading comprehension is weak (as it seems to be):

According to the article you linked to (the one published on January 25), in one of the labs they did indeed create an H5 HA variant of the H5N1 virus, that was -- quite predictably -- deadly to the ferrets. And again, since ferret susceptibility to influenza is so close to that of humans, it is very likely that it was, indeed, a "superflu" transmissible to humans.

The resources in this world are finite and there are opportunity costs when doing one thing instead of another. In my opinion the cost:benefit and risk:reward ratio of this sort of research aren't good enough. Better to do something else first.Many like to use the excuse that others will do it if "we" don't do it, and my reply is it'll at least be later rather than sooner, and it's still a stupid reason to do something, because as our technology improves we may start to have the capability to create the equ

you can't build such a society. the outliers are natural. for example: schizophrenia. there is zero protection in trying to build a society without malintentioned individuals. there weill always be malintentioned individuals. you suggest a fool's errand

So we stop trying? We ignore our ability to gauge probability and costs and do nothing regardless of how cheap and easy some black swans cost to prevent?

The sun occasionally will zap us with enough solar wind/ radiation to induce current in sites that could knock out all power transformers on the northern hemisphere. Probability: very rare. Costs to prevent: low (small advance warning system of a few minutes, auto kick off transformers from long power lines).

You're a moron. All the link is saying is that surprise rare events have shaped history. Its not fucking complicated, and more importantly, its absolutely right. But I encourage your hatred of philosophy, maybe you'll marry your stated belief with your actions and stop sharing your ideas, to our benefit.

Here's the thing. Now IANAB (I am not a biologist) but I do know that biologists are scared that one day this virus could mutate on its own into something that spreads rapidly through humans. And I'm guessing--- just taking a wild guess here-- that if a researcher wanted to take a stab at creating a vaccine to prevent that kind of global pandemic then the first step would be to look at what form the mutated virus might take.

The funniest thing is they didn't seem to see a problem with that at all. If you think about any of that for like ONE SECOND, you might think to yourself "Hmm maybe today instead of creating a superflu that could destroy ALL LIFE on earth, I'll just slack off and browse the web instead." These guys were like "Ok! Created superflu! Check! Now lets TELL EVERYBODY about it!" Hey everyone! Check out our new superflu! Yeah... it could kill everyone! Isn't that cool? Ok, I'm exaggerating a little there, but it re

What they actually did was create a NEW strain of the virus, which was physically transmissible. Before they bred this transmissible virus via ferrets, it was not easily transmitted to humans.

Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets. Subsequently, aerosol transmissibility amongst FERRETS was selected for. Not transmissibility amongst humans.

"Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets. Subsequently, aerosol transmissibility amongst FERRETS was selected for. Not transmissibility amongst humans."

I will repeat what I wrote to someone else above:

What YOU don't seem to understand is that ferrets are used precisely because their susceptibility to influenza is nearly identical to that of humans. An influenza virus that transmits among ferrets is extremely likely to be transmissible to humans as well. More likely than not, in fact.

What YOU don't seem to understand is that ferrets are used precisely because their susceptibility to influenza is nearly identical to that of humans.

Except not. As has already been pointed out, passaging through ferrets likely reduces virulence to humans, rather than increasing it. You must know this, unless you only read some of the replies to your posts. I'm tired of responding to you, as are others. You really do deliberately misunderstand.

"Just no. That's totally wrong. Are you deliberately misunderstanding? A mutation found to allow binding of human tissue was developed, but not by infecting ferrets."

Except that YOU are wrong. Right here [nature.com] (the same link provided by someone else above), paragraph 5.

That very clearly says that they created a new H5N1 strain with the H5 HA protein, which increased transmissibility. And (as I cite references for in another post below), it was precisely "To determine whether H5N1 viruses could be transmitted between humans..." [paragraph 4 of that same link].

The US Department of Health is concerned mainly with management of public health, maintianing the public health care system, and responding to widespread health emergencies. The NIH is a research body primarily involved with research in the health and biosciences, and with distributing funding to other organisations doing research in those fields.

What's the difference between the US Department of Health and National Institute of Health (NIH)? I know the latter is part of the executive branch, but that'sit.

They're both executive branch. The NIH are formally a part of the DoH, and have responsibility for doing (and coordinating) research for the department. There are similar arrangements in other departments (the DoD has DARPA, the DoE fund a number of national labs, etc.) and it's not very remarkable. In general, it's useful for the departments to have research arms in order to both provide solid scientifically-based advice on policy, and to gently encourage everyone else to do research that benefits the nation as well as themselves.

Except it's not possible to do that. Science works when the information is not censored and free to anyone with the skills and knowledge to build on it. By preventing stuff from being published like this for fear that someone somewhere 'might' use this in a way that $government doesn't want hinders progress.

One thing that I can think of off the top of my head that somone can use this research for is to make a virus that they can then alter its payload to say deliver gene thearpy with a high success rate.

Your proposition has been dealt with long ago by ethicists and epistemologists.

Consider the case of R&D for military applications. Frame your argument around the knowledge on how to build effective atomic bombs, for example. Think of arguments for and against publication, including whether publication hinders or promotes progress. Consider whether knowledge is ultimately morals-agnostic or is always permeated with the researcher's moral code at some point.

Recommending censorship of scientific literature is extremely dangerous ground, and a precedent which could lead to the halt of scientific advancement on earth if the limit is applied (mathematically).

Scientific advancement generally lets us do difficult things more easily. Humans are reasonably resilient to other humans, but still rather delicate and fragile over the spectrum of physical and chemical (biological) forces. Scientific advancement will allow an individual human to apply physical and chemical

If they don't want anyone to read the papers, they should print off millions of copies with an official-looking government cover, then send them out all over the country with big letters on the envelope: "Important Information from Your Government".

Nor will they ever be binding as one of the groups is based in Europe and one of the journals is published/hq'd in Europe.
Why would their law (NIH is based in the US) ever be binding to a group/publication not based in the US.
The US needs to a refresher course in jurisdiction.

Afaik, this research is also locked down and kept secret in Europe for the same reasons as in the US. These strains of flu viruses are well understood and is probably one of the easiest to modify given the knowledge and research already done. I know little of the subject, but let's say the Stuxnet code was published and all that was needed to make it take down 70% of the nuclear plants in the world at the same time by simply uncommenting a ''Fuxx0rThemAllSimultaneously()' function call. Even a novice programmer would figure that out. Maybe that flu virus is analogous, and requires not much else than a novice fucking around with it to make it uber-deadly. I'd prefer they kept it hidden.

Most of it was decompiled and published here [github.com]. You can find all the binaries online if you're really interested. Hiding the results is just security by obscurity. The Dutch scientist didn't perform some magic trick that nobody else can do. Doesn't make it any less scary though.

My point was that it's not easily done by a novice. Go ahead and modify that reversed hybid C/assembly code, reassemble and deploy it meaningfully if you can. Frankly, I'd prefer that the script kiddies does not have access to this code or, god forbid, any GUI slapped on top of this. Github is basically hosting a recipe for disaster.

you're missing the point.
i'm not arguing that it should/shouldn't be locked down. i'm arguing that an NIH has no LEGAL right over a UK publisher and a Dutch group.
i'm a biochemist and understand the science. i don't understand how anyone at the NIH could impose their LEGAL will on a european funding agency or research group

From the description of the second article: "The NSABB's censorship recommendations do not (currently) have the force of law, but Science and Nature voluntarily delayed publication." I don't understand why they would ever have the force of law. I understand exactly what the board and the NIH (I have funding) do. I also understand what the research is about. I don't understand what the hell the/. summary is getting at.

Legal will? What are you talking about? Go read TFA. It clearly states that the "Science Panel" recommended the papers be published with the methodology removed.

The Slashdot headline implies they are a science panel, but in fact they are a security panel with scientists on it. Their purpose in life, like lawyers, is to be professionally risk averse, error on the side of saying "no", and censoring any and all information that falls into their domain of knowledge which could potentially be used at some point in the future to do anything risky.

We need people like this, but we don't need them to be the judge, jury, and executioner on what science does or does not get

When security vulnerabilities are discovered in a piece of software (that is not open source), the release of that information may be delayed to allow sufficient time for the developers to patch the vulnerability. This organisation is basically asking that the release of this information be delayed until such a time as it is irrelevant. The problem we see with this is that people will always find the unreleased vulnerabilities, and it is entirely possible that this will happen in this case, but it would be a bit more catastrophic than a 0-day IIS vulnerability.

If you are trying to draw parallels with IT you are making the same mistake as those who think theft and copyright infringement are the same or those who want physical retaliation against a "cyberwar". In IT we can have bulletproof defences, but IRL sadly we can't. Biological warfare is a very real threat that could destroy the current nuclear peace we live in. We shouldn't make it easier for the bad guys by doing the research for them. Now if this paper turns out to be unharmful it can always be released l

True but you can still have much stronger defenses on a computer. A person is like a computer with a ton of ports open to known-vulnerable services that relies entirely on IDS and antivirus to prevent a complete rooting.

Or to look at it another way, a properly locked-down computer is like a person in a hazmat suit - except that to the computer it isn't a massive PITA.

Or to look at it another way, a properly locked-down computer is like a person in a hazmat suit - except that to the computer it isn't a massive PITA.

Not a PITA? Tell that to computers who are burdened with a Norton suite installation.:)

But seriously, there's some truth to what you're saying, but the problem is "proper" lockdown isn't common, and certainly not as easy as buying a suit. The average system, and even the average server maintained by a paid "professional", is quite vulnerable. Those who do properly lock-down are still merely (to really beat this analogy to death...) wearing a hazmat suit with a defective zipper. It's never actually secu

Just look at the fact that the bird flu story is directly after then Angry Birds story. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm waking up at 3am and later about 5-something AM, but I think there's more than just a casual connection here. Look at the facts:

1. Both about birds.2. Both about people unable to control themselves.3. One is about a bird virus, the other about birds going viral.

Worse yet, from what I understand enough information has leaked out so that anyone with the right education can already do this without too much difficulty, so trying to censor it is just whipping up the Streissand Effect.

Anyone who has half-a-background in virology would have had this stroke of inspiration by now. So what has been accomplished with this ban? Well, lot's of attention has now been brought on the matter to alert the quarter-brained ones.

.. before someone crazy enough to release such a virus is capable of creating one. At least up until now, the people capable tend to have a mind reasonable enough to show restraint about it.

If it gets easier to do, this may no longer be the case, and so there may be only a matter of time. That doesn't mean we have to help it along by publishing the information necessary to create one in public access journals. If censoring these articles delays the inevitable by just a few months, that is either a few month

However that still leaves the deranged , which unfortunately there are a lot of on the planet. Though whether they could be deranged enough AND smart enough at the same time to do it is another matter.

Yep, quite so. They generaly move into another neighbohood, and them bomb that other one.

or taunt superpowers into invading their countries

You can't blame the terrorists for the US modus operant of terrorizing nations that can't protect themselves. But, anyway, last time I saw, the US didn't have a track record of going after the terrorists' nations (Are you talking about the Taliban? They are from Saudi Arabia). They mostly go after who the te

OK- complete fiction- but it lays down the scenario. Hitler faced with almost certain defeat releases a virus that kills most people on earth- and of the few survivors- most of them are dying slow deaths. He hoped releasing the virus would deflect his enemies from attacking him.

OK- now that is complete fiction that obviously never happened. However, there could be a scenario where someone feeling there back is against the wall feels that the best solution is to make every

* Release the virus because there are too many humans to be environmentally healthy for the Earth

That's one heck of a green solution. Reduce the population by a factor of ten and it'll take a few generations to get back up to where it is now (maybe 50-75 years?). Reduce the population by a factor of 100 and it might be twice that. And if some societies collapse, maybe some industrialized activity will slowdown too.

It still could be used as a weapon of mutually assured destruction. You either comply with the terrorists' demands or they release the virus. Even worse, if someone could make a cure for the virus, they could release it without fear of getting infected, then become the leaders of the world as anyone who wants the vaccine would have to ask it from them.

The important secret here is that "university-based scientists in the Netherlands and Wisconsin created a version of the so-called H5N1 influenza virus that is highly lethal and easily transmissible between ferrets."

Assume that there are terrorists out there who wish to develop a virological weapon, and have the smarts and the wherewithal to do so. They now know that the H5N1 virus is a good place to start and that there's a winning combination to be found. Holding back the precise blueprint isn't going to delay things much. You have to assume the terrorists are capable of doing research-quality work. It sounds rather as if researchers in the Netherlands and Wisconsin both found answers indepedently. It's quite possible that the terrorists, working on their own, will find something original and better than either of them.

What suppressing the research might do is make it difficult for other researchers to experiment with protective measures against them.

Knowing that an atomic bomb was possible motivated other governments to develop one (through espionage or R&D). Keeping the technical details of how to make an atomic bomb secret is one of the reasons that small non-government groups have so far not developed one. In this case I think that making it difficult to find out how to create a super-deadly virus will reduce the chances that small groups will try to create one.

I think there is a real anti-correlation between well funded competent organizations

Damn, I was just writing that I'm less worried about Al Qaeda reading scientific journals on bird flu than I am about Al Qaeda reading about censorship over security concerns, titled "Streisand Effect" . I was going to give thanks to Slashdot for killing us all by flagging this for weaponization or Streisand-Andromeda-Flu. Then I got worried that I could be contributing to our doom by making the connection, and trying to word this in pig latin so that it wouldn't give any ideas. Then... you scooped me by

I think it's -possible- that garage molecular biology research is just around the corner. I wasn't around for the era of kids in their garages with a computer leading to million dollar startups, but it seems to me like it's going to happen with DNA.

Affordable PCR machines, or DIY PCR machines [medgadget.com] are starting to appear, fully sequenced genomes are of course available freely online. Anyone with half a brain can design primers and amplify DNA, anyone with a little patience can make any construct they want.